Hello community!
Welcome back.
It's Jax,
Your habits coach and stress releasing yoga teacher and I'm excited to be talking to you once again about our happiness hormones.
I love talking about happiness hormones because they really allow us to shape those positive emotions and feelings of well-being and allow them to come a little bit closer to our awareness so that we can really bask in all the benefits that they bring.
Today we're gonna be talking about oxytocin and doing an activity that I know you will love to increase your oxytocin levels.
If you didn't know,
Oxytocin is a hormone and a neurotransmitter often referred to as the love hormone or the bonding hormone and it plays a critical role in social bonding,
Trust,
And emotional connection.
Oxytocin is released during activities like hugging,
Touching,
And social interactions and it just really promotes that feeling of closeness and attachment between individuals.
Oxytocin is linked to positive emotions and an overall sense of well-being and it's really present during moments of love and affection and support and that can have us have those feelings of happiness and contentment.
One of my favorite things about oxytocin is that it helps reduce stress.
Through oxytocin's release,
It counteracts the effects of the stress hormone cortisol and this leads to feelings of relaxation and calmness.
So today we are going to be doing an activity of self-massage.
Massage and physical touch can trigger the release of oxytocin and this promotes feelings of relaxation and well-being.
Let's go ahead and get into our activity now.
Find a place where you can sit upright and where you are distraction-free and take a deep breath in through the nose and then exhale let it go and then go ahead and place your right hand on your stomach and your left hand on top of your right hand and in a moment we're going to take three deep belly breaths.
So we'll breathe into the belly you'll feel your hands push out and then on the exhale you'll feel your belly dip down.
So go ahead and take an exhale at the nose to prepare and then we'll begin.
Inhale into the belly for one,
Two,
Three,
Pause,
Really feel your belly pushed out,
Your hands pressed against your belly and then like a balloon deflating exhale for three,
Two,
One.
So inhale for one,
Two,
Three,
Belly out and exhale belly drops for three,
Two,
One.
Inhale,
Breathe,
Push the belly out,
Pause and then exhale just go ahead and let it go.
And then with the hands on top of each other just start to rub your stomach.
So just going in one direction just rubbing your stomach nice and gentle.
Face is soft,
Face is smooth and then start rubbing your stomach in the other direction.
So just nice and gentle.
These circles can be as big or as small as you want and then go ahead and bring both palms together and start to rub your palms together.
Just start to rub your palms together,
Really rub them together,
Keep rubbing,
Rubbing,
Rubbing,
Rubbing and then take a deep breath in and then exhale bring your hands to the top of your head and then just start to gently rub your hands all over your head.
So just giving yourself a nice little scalp massage and then this is where you can almost act like your fingers are rain and you can start to tap the top of your head almost like rain is being tapped on the top of your head and then just start to move your fingertips down to your neck and now start to move your fingers in circular motions.
Just slowly work your way up and down the sides of your neck and the base of your skull and if you find any tight spots just pause and apply a little bit more pressure,
Breathing deeply as you do.
The whole time your breath is nice and smooth,
Your face is smooth and then just start to move your fingertips down into the tops of your shoulders.
Start to press your fingers into the tops of your shoulders and we're gonna press and hold for ten,
Nine,
Eight,
Seven,
Six,
Five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One.
Go ahead and release your hands and then just gently roll your shoulders backwards and forwards a few times.
Go ahead and shake it off and then go ahead and extend your right arm out in front of you,
Palm facing up and with your left hand just start to gently squeeze and knead the muscles of your forearm.
So just working from the wrist to the elbow.
So just gently kneading this,
Just doing what intuitively feels right,
Almost like you're like a piece of dough and you're just kneading it,
Just creating a little bit of release of tension in that whole forearm and then you're gonna move that left hand all the way to your right palm.
Start to release tension in your hand by gently massaging your palm.
So I like to use my left thumb here,
Just really using that thumb into the whole palm and then you're gonna use that left hand to really massage your right palm.
For me I like to just have the left thumb in the palm,
The right hand,
That really is nice to just do that.
You can do whatever feels good with your palm and then we'll start to massage each finger.
So starting with the right thumb,
Just give me a little massage with the left hand and then the pointer finger on the right hand and the middle finger,
A little massage,
A little squeeze there,
Ring finger and then finally your pinky finger and then just give me a couple circles in that right wrist.
So just creating little circles in the wrist clockwise and then taking the same amount counterclockwise and then you can go ahead and just shake that right hand,
Let it go,
Let it go and now extend the left arm out in front of you,
Palm facing up.
With your right hand just start to gently squeeze and knead the muscles of your forearm,
So working from the wrist to the elbow.
Remember we're just being gentle here so we're never forcing any pressure,
We're never going past our edge.
All we're doing right now is we're just doing a little self massage,
We're increasing that oxytocin in the bloodstream,
We're creating that sense of love and appreciation and bonding with ourselves,
Knowing that we can give ourselves this self massage and add a little bit more love into the equation.
And then let's release that tension in your left hand,
So go ahead and just start to massage the left palm,
This is where you can use the right hand,
You can use all the fingers,
One finger,
You can use a thumb,
You can use the knuckles on the right hand,
Just really letting this be exploratory of what your hand needs.
Emphasis on the need,
So really need it.
And then let's make our way into that left thumb,
So just massage in the left thumb,
You can squeeze it,
You can move it around gently,
Make your way to your left finger,
Do what feels intuitively right in your body today,
Move into your left middle finger,
Make our way to the ring finger,
And then finally the pinky.
And then go ahead and give me those circles in the wrist,
The left wrist,
Give me a couple circles clockwise,
And then a couple circles counterclockwise.
And when you're done with that,
Shake that left hand out,
Shake it out,
And then let it go.
And then from here we're gonna make little fists with our hands,
And we're just gently gonna have them go up and down the thighs.
So you can do this on the front of the thighs,
You can do it on the sides of the thighs,
On the back of the thighs,
Just giving ourselves a little,
A little bit of love in the thighs,
Making little fists with our hands,
Just giving little bounces on it with the fists.
And then you can move those down to the caps and the shins,
And then go ahead and let the hands go.
Release the hands,
And then finally the toes.
So just taking a moment to wiggle the toes a little bit here,
And then the last thing we're gonna do is we're gonna wrap our arms around ourselves and just give ourselves a big hug.
So just giving yourself this big hug,
Taking a few deep breaths to absorb the benefits of your self-massage,
And just noticing how your body feels,
And using this last hug to really release any remaining tension,
And just letting it melt away.
When you're ready,
You can gently release yourself.
And remember that taking time for self-care and relaxation is essential for your well-being.
Feel free to return to this practice whenever you need to unwind and release stress and increase your oxytocin.
This is Jax,
Your Habits Coach and Stress Releasing Yoga Teacher,
And I'll see you next time.
